y’all ever think about neil’s high school classmates? like this weird kid played with them for a year and then a few months later shows up playing for a shitty team and then the media coverage about him just gets progressively more unhinged. (kathy’s show, his press duty, his looks post-evermore, the coverage post-baltimore, etc)
and then a few years later he’s playing in the pros, is like the fastest starting striker in the history of exy, he’s gonna be on the olympic team, and it’s revealed he’s married to the angry blonde goalkeeper
“WHAT?” Kristen shouted next to him, loud enough Neil had to cover his ear, unintentionally putting the ring on full display. She was one of the few he least tolerated since joining the Denver Outlaws, always sticking her nose in other people’s lives. “What the fuck is that, Josten?! Did you get married or what?!”
Neil spared her a scowl, not appreciating having his hearing compromised and the attention of all his teammates on him. “Yes,” he said flatly and went to the treadmill to continue his workout.
OR
Neil and Andrew get married without public knowledge.
Everyone thinks they're rivals, even their pro teams.
Neil is tired of it, and what better way to end it all than by showing off at finals?
Pov Outsiders 5+1 Neil and Andrew are King and Queen of Baltimore and no one understands them. Basically Andreil being their dangerous in love selves and no one(the Foxes, Ravens and OC’s) understanding either of them and especially not their relationship.
Oh man oh jeez what's this oh god it looks like I dropped an arranged marriage request right in your lap omg i'm so sorry - @jtl-fics
Oh me oh my, an arranged marriage au? Well I suppose I can give you this too hehe: Arranged Marriage AU for WIP Wednsday 9/6/2023 (closed)
The glass pane was cold beneath Neil’s fingertips. The floor-to-ceiling windows had confused him and annoyed him when he'd first arrived at the Minyard Estate just barely a year ago. He was from the northern Moriyama Empire; a land with long winters and short summers, where windows were small to keep the heat inside. Despite his annoyance, he was fascinated with the expanse of glass. Standing on the second floor he could see the entirety of the long drive and the front gardens.
On the stone steps at the front door, the staff was gathering. The master of the house was returning home. Maids swept every small speck of dirt and dust from the steps, keeping everything in perfect condition. Neil hadn't seen the butler since the morning debrief during breakfast; the older man was more than likely running around making sure everything and everyone was in order.
Neil leaned his shoulder onto the window trim, forehead dropping to the glass with a dull thud. He'd had a year of peace living in the estate. The Minyards were famous throughout the continent as prolific monster hunters. Neil had heard the name even in his father’s lands in the far northern mountains.
Now Andrew Minyard, Neil’s husband, was returning after a year long expedition. There was dust in the distance, stirred up by the hooves of horses and the wheels of carriages. It would soon be time.
(I'm obsessed with this idea and will actually tell you everything just so you know sksksksk)
Someone once asked me: can you write something that would ordinarily be considered plot heavy as something light and silly?
So I came up with this.
*
“Honey, I’m home,” Neil called out hoarsely, stumbling through the doorway. His hand was clutched to his side, the bullet wound still aching despite inhaling copious amounts of pain medication just half an hour ago.
It wasn’t his first wound and it wouldn’t be his last, but it was definitely the first time Andrew’d ever shot him. He knew it was Andrew because no one else on his team had a 9mm caliber, and Andrew had also shot Neil somewhere non-fatal, despite his perfect aim. Andrew always shot close: close enough to be considered a true attempt, but never close enough to hit.
Except Neil wasn’t always that lucky.
“You walked up the stairs?” His husband called out from the living room.
“No,” Neil managed, slowly pulling off his coat one arm at a time.
“Certainly sounds like it,” Andrew said, getting off the couch. Neil inhaled deeply through his nose, anticipating the argument. It wasn’t always easy, being married to a leading detective with the Baltimore police, as the boss of one of Baltimore’s most renowned gangs. They’d worked around those hiccups, but this was definitely going to go against rule three: Don’t talk about work.
“Neil,” Andrew said, arms crossed as he looked at a sweaty, pale-faced and hunched-over version of his husband. “What the fuck?”
“I’m fine,” Neil grit out, holding out his hand. Andrew immediately took it and pulled Neil’s weight against his side, helping him to the couch.
Andrew yanked off Neil’s shirt and surveyed Allison’s work—which was, as always, perfectly adequate—before getting up for ice, a wet cloth and new bandages, all with a concerned furrow between his brows.
“So,” Neil asked lightly, taking the bloody cloth and dabbing the sweat off Andrew’s brow. “How was work?”
“Other than the fact that I shot my husband?” Andrew grunted. “It was stellar. Best day I’ve ever had.”
“Andrew, it’s fine. It’s a hazard of the job. It’s a hazard of your job.”
“I can’t keep Wymack and the others off your tail forever,” Andrew snapped. “It’s dangerous as fuck.”
Neil sighed. “They won’t find anything, ‘Drew. You know this. There’s nothing to find.”
Andrew’s fingers brushed over Neil’s cheekbone. “There’s us. There’s information I’ve withheld from Wymack, unsolved cases that’ll stay open because I’m married to a mob boss.”
“One unsolved case,” Neil corrected him. “Spear was signing his own death certificate when he touched you.”
Andrew settled on the couch next to Neil and put his legs across Neil’s lap. Neil leaned his head on Andrew’s shoulder: it only twinged his side a little bit.
It’d always worked out fine: Neil was Andrew’s informant on gang-related behaviour and substance movement or rings for other factions in Baltimore. He made sure everything was on the strait and narrow and kept his own gang clean of bullshit like exploitative sex work and child trafficking rings. His resources were clean and his prices were fair: If someone owed him, they’d pay it back. The ‘or else’ was always left unsaid, but not unclear. It was just business.
So if the Wesninski gang was left alone and Andrew and the police were kept busy, everyone benefitted! Everything was fine.
Till shootouts in back alleyways happened and you accidentally shoot the love of your life. It was just a hazard of the relationship.
Neil would give it up eventually, when he’d paid off his father’s debts to the Moriyamas. He promised Andrew he would, so that he could go to Andrew’s work parties and dinner evenings and introduce himself as Neil Josten, Andrew’s husband, even if they’d all know exactly who he was from Nathaniel Wesninski’s glamorous mug shots.
Till that day came, he’d just focus on what he already had. He smiled into Andrew’s chest and received a flick to his ear for the effort.
“Carry me to bed?” He inquired, resting his chin on Andrew’s shoulder.
“No.”
“You realise you shot me today, right?”
“Carrying you risks popping the stitches. You can’t guilt-trip someone who won’t feel guitly.”
Neil laughed. “I know you actually do, but I’ll indulge you just this once.” When Andrew stood up off the couch, Neil pulled himself up with fingers around his wrist. “You owe me.”
Andrew sighed, letting Neil lead him to bed. “I always somehow do.”
Okay, so there was this post, about where I was stuck at a rather miserable wedding. And in the comments, @fuzzballsheltiepants left a comment about imagining being stuck at the wedding with Neil and Andrew at the table.
Well, guess you could say that it inspired this fic.
No real warnings here, other than Neil stirring up trouble. Oh, and drink responsibly.
*******
“Who the hell does a puzzle game at a wedding?”
The left corner of Neil’s mouth twitched upward at the hint of indignation in his husband’s voice; he glanced over to find Andrew, his expression bored (better than murderous), gazing around the room with a half-empty plastic cup held in his left hand. He looked so handsome in his black suit with dark grey dress shirt (sans tie), blond hair freshly trimmed and bangs brushed back from his forehead. Yet for all the enticing picture he made at the moment, Neil would much rather he be dressed in a pair of comfortable sweats – that they both be in sweats and at their townhouse, busy making dinner and spoiling the cats than stuck at Regan’s wedding.
Unfortunately, it seemed that when the captain of your Exy team got married, you were expected to attend the event, especially if you were a married couple yourself and they helped back a transfer that got the two of you on the same team at last.
Dammit.
“I must admit, that’s the first I’ve heard of it – if anything, Nicky would have had it at his wedding.” Neil smiled when Andrew snorted at that, considering the spectacle the event had already been. “Or suggested it for ours.” When his husband grimaced, his smile widened. “Though to be fair, I think seeing who could pick a lock fastest would have been more ‘us’.”
“That or break out of handcuffs,” Andrew suggested while giving him a narrow look for some reason, then finished the last of his whiskey. “But we were smart enough to skip all of this nonsense.” Their ceremony had lasted five minutes, tops, at the courthouse and included only their most ‘necessary pests’ (Andrew’s words).
“True,” Neil murmured as he glanced around the large room crowded with people; some he knew since they were teammates, but most were strangers – Regan’s family and friends, or Sarah’s, he supposed. He’d only known the Dynamite’s captain for a few months, not counting the occasional meet-up when his former team played Andrew’s, and so wasn’t that familiar with the man’s fiancée.
Certainly not familiar enough to feel as if he should be stuck at the man’s wedding, but Regan wanted his team there for some reason, so Neil (and Andrew) had to suffer through the thing. Strict orders had been given – they couldn’t leave until after the cake had been cut and handed out.
Dammit.
At least there was an open bar, which they braved yet again so Andrew could have another drink (Neil stuck with juice since he wasn’t comfortable having more than a glass or two of beer or cider with his new teammates), but it seemed by then that the servers were done walking around with appetizers. Andrew stood there radiating indignation while Dave (backliner) introduced Neil to his wife, Laura, then clicked his tongue in disgust once they left. “They said the reception would start at 5:30. That was ten minutes ago.”
“Uhm, these things tend to run late?” Neil winced at the spark of irritation in his husband’s hazel eyes. “Maybe there’s something left at the cheese table.”
That seemed to appease the walking black hole, at least for the moment; they went into the one room where a cheese and vegetable spread had been placed (and a small classical quartet played music), and found that it hadn’t been entirely picked clean just yet.
They also found Mark, the team’s sub goalie, being berated by a guest who appeared determined to convert him to a vegan lifestyle. “-much better for the planet if you stop murdering animals because you ‘like a nice steak now and then’,” the young woman sneered.
Neil was bored, stuck wearing a suit (even if Andrew had picked it out for him and it always led to a quite enjoyable time later when it came to removing it) and would much rather be home, so he decided ‘what the hell’ because when would he see most of these people again? “Actually,” he informed the woman as he cut into her tirade, “there are some downsides to a vegan lifestyle. I mean, unless you’re growing everything yourself with sustainability in mind, you can negatively impact the environment even if you’re not ‘murdering animals’.” He gave her a cold smile as he nodded to her fake leather purse and shoes. “Think plastic is good for the planet? Or when you just have to have your latest fad vegetable or grain to the point you don’t care how it impacts the area around it?” He tried to remember some of the other arguments Allison had made during their last visit together, but it seemed that he’d already annoyed the woman enough as she’d taken to glaring at him (along with her date for the evening) while Mark smiled in relief and Andrew continued to decimate what remained of the cheese.
“You don’t have to be an asshole,” she snapped before she stomped away (with date in tow), and even tossed her long, black hair over her shoulder in emphasis.
“Thanks.” Mark gave him a relieved smile then took a swig of his beer. “All I did was make a joke about if she thought we’d be lucky enough to have steak for dinner and she went off on me. What happened to ‘each their own’, eh?”
“We’re with you there,” Neil agreed; personally, he didn’t care about one’s lifestyle choices as long as they didn’t impact others, and wished that more people felt the same.
He talked with Mark and Jennie (offensive dealer) who joined the discussion while Andrew basically cleared the table, and then it was back to the bar (some people better have a ride home or plan on cutting themselves off soon, because it was clear the long wait for dinner was not a good thing). “You just can’t resist stirring up shit, can you?” Andrew mused as he swirled the whiskey (at least the bar was stocked with semi-decent liquor or Neil suspected they’d have been long gone, ‘cake’ rule or no cake rule).
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” Neil kept a straight face until Andrew scoffed, then smiled enough that the scar on his left cheek ached from stretching so much.
They snuck outside to smoke (one of their five cigarettes each of the day), uncaring of the cold when they were alone and able to enjoy each other’s company in silence for a little while. Then it was back inside, where they found a quiet corner to wait (well, except for when Andrew bitched and bitched about how Regan had no fucking clue how to tell time) for the reception hall to be ready.
Almost an hour and a half later than it had said on the invite, the doors were opened and they were ‘invited’ to sit at their arranged tables for the reception part of the wedding. Regan and Sarah had set things up so the players were scattered amongst their family and friends.
Somehow, Neil wasn’t surprised (not with his luck) to find himself at the same table as the vegan couple.
She gave him and Andrew a cold look and immediately made it clear that she and her boyfriend were the best of friends with another couple at the table, which left two other couples for Neil and Andrew to talk to for the next hour or two. Except that Andrew had never gotten along very well with Lucas, who helped with the team’s media accounts (which meant that Neil didn’t, either), and the other couple were related to Sarah and had kids, so Neil listened to them ramble on for a couple of minutes about nine-to-five jobs and toddlers and just lost focus around the time they mentioned ‘day-care’.
“We’re going back to the bar, and this time distract the bartender while I grab the bottle of whiskey,” Andrew murmured in German.
Considering that vegan-girl was going on about some amazing quinoa recipe, Neil figured that it was the best thing possible, or else he’d be calling Renee to help him break his husband out of prison for mass homicide.
On second thought, it might be a good idea to text her just in case…..
While the maid of honor rambled on about what a precious saint Sarah was, he smiled at the one bartender (who appeared exhausted and looking forward to a break, now that people were seated and about to be fed), and asked about gin drinks while inching a twenty toward the tip jar, and walked off with a gin and tonic he would sadly have to ignore (especially since it was obvious that he’d be driving home) while a smug Andrew cradled his illicit goods beneath his coat back to the table.
Andrew stared everyone down as he drank straight from the bottle, while Neil had never been so grateful to see a salad appear in front of him in his life.
That and the bread baskets had to last them until it was their table’s turn to go to the buffet for any real food, and of course they were table ten. “Isn’t it odd, how all of a sudden the balls seem attracted to Regan’s head,” Andrew said as he snatched up the last two rolls, much to Lucas’ ire.
“Or his car tires are always deflated.” Neil hadn’t thought that the backliner had disliked them, but he was beginning to revise that opinion. “Good thing we didn’t go with the one bar set he wanted as a gift.”
“No, he deserves that horrid vase.” A slight shiver of distaste ran through Andrew’s stocky body.
“Ah, it’s rude to talk in a language no one else understands,” vegan-girl’s bestie said with evident disapproval, never mind that most of the table had been carrying on a conversation together - without Andrew and Neil.
Andrew gave her a blank look while Neil offered his father’s smile until she blanched. “Not our fault you don’t understand it,” he said before he rolled his eyes and turned back to his husband. “Make sure to throw the balls really, really hard.”
The look he received from his ‘better half’ made it clear that he needn’t have said anything.
While they waited for their turn, Neil exchanged a few texts with Renee (Andrew appeased for the moment, but chance for bloodshed still possible, while she mentioned various flight arrivals, that Allison was excited about her upcoming fashion line and that a care package was on its way to them). For his part, Andrew sipped the whiskey while he recited a German drinking song with rather dubious lyrics in a rote manner in an obvious attempt to annoy their dinner-mates.
(It worked.)
Everyone appeared relieved when it was finally their turn to eat; vegan-besties tried to get there first, but Andrew blocked speeding balls for a living while Neil dealt with people larger than him trying to knock him down all the time, so they had no problems getting to the buffet ahead of everyone else. Neil threw a smile over his shoulder at the couple while Andrew grabbed their plates.
At least the food looked decent; Andrew loaded up on the lasagna, fried chicken sliders and prawns, while Neil had the first two and a bowl of fruit salad; the vegetables were roundly ignored.
When vegan-girl saw their plates at the table, she glared (especially at Andrew, who was busy breaking apart the pieces of lasagna). “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Could she not see the bowl of fruit? Neil opened his mouth to argue and then thought better of it – Renee would be slightly peeved if she had to break both of them out of jail, after all. “What type of cake do you think it is, hmm? Chocolate? Vanilla? Almond?”
“It better be the best damn cake in the world after putting up with this shit,” Andrew muttered between bites of food.
On that they both agreed.
It was quiet while everyone ate, which Neil put down to everyone being hungry, and then the married couple made noises about it being late (not really) and the babysitter and kids. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when first the wife left the table and then the husband once their plates were empty, and neither returned after ten minutes.
He was jealous as hell.
Even though there had been a couple of (thankfully short) speeches when the Regan and Sarah had entered the large room, Regan’s best man (Tim, his brother) got up to say a few more words and then the cake was wheeled into the room. Neil and Andrew perked up at that, even though it looked to be covered in that awful fondant icing and lots of gold dust. There was more talking (why?) between Regan and Sarah, and then they finally cut the damn thing.
“Maybe we’ll be out of here soon,” Andrew murmured as he tapped his fingers against the top of the table.
“One can hope.” The next time they got any invitations that weren’t from their fellow Foxes in the mail, Neil was going to come down with a case of food poisoning or something instead of suffer through another wedding.
Andrew got up from the table at one point, so Neil pulled out his phone to text with Renee some more to ask her what she thought might bring on some convincing flu-like symptoms for a couple of days (he’d ask Aaron, but chances were fifty/fifty that the bastard might poison him for real) while he half-expected the fire alarm to go off.
Especially when Andrew didn’t come back in ten minutes.
(He knew his husband hadn’t gone off without him, because then there would be bloodshed.)
Andrew finally returned bearing two plates overloaded with cookies, of all things. “That’s not cake.”
“Nice to see you haven’t taken too many hits to the head yet,” Andrew remarked as he pushed something round, white and covered in powdered sugar toward Neil, who regarded it with some suspicion but bit into it regardless; it was a shortbread cookie with walnuts so not bad. “There’s a cookie table out there.”
“Really?” Neil thought about that while Lucas’ wife (who actually nice) looked on with interest. “Okay, why?”
Andrew shrugged and had another cookie, some rolled thing with filling. “Something about Sarah being from Pennsylvania and it being a tradition there, from what the server told me.” Knowing Andrew, all he cared about was that there were sweets readily available.
Neil leaned against his husband while the glutton ate his way through the cookies, and smiled when a pumpkin spice cookie was nudged his way (it was good). When twenty minutes went by and still no cake but a DJ invited people (more like harassed) onto the dance floor, Andrew made a slight growling noise, had another swig of whiskey and went to fetch more cookies.
It was beginning to feel like they’d never leave the damn wedding, that they were trapped there forever. Neil had survived a life on the run, had lasted through two (three) weeks at Evermore, had been tortured, so refused to be broken by this evening.
But dammit, it was hard.
Especially when the DJ started playing Justin Bieber.
When Andrew began to slide his fingers beneath the cuffs of his sleeves, Neil knew that they had to leave, and they had to leave now. “Go get our coats,” he whispered in his husband’s left ear, followed by a slight nuzzle. When Andrew gave him a curious look, mindful of their instructions for the night, he smiled in a confident (well, Nicky called it his ‘oh shit we’re dead’ grin) manner. “Trust me.”
“I’m not that drunk,” Andrew insisted, yet grabbed the bottle of whiskey which did have a good bit left in it still and left the table.
Neil couldn’t resist giving a chilling smile to the remaining people at the table, which made them cringe back, before he headed to the kitchen. The staff was surprised to see him and tried to politely shoo him away, but all it took was holding up two fifties and explaining how his spouse had a headache so he needed two slices of cake (which was already cut and plated, so what the hell was the hold-up?) to go.
They were only too happy to box those two slices for him.
He made sure to take pictures of the slices, which he’d provide to Coach Denham to prove that he and Andrew had remained at the damn wedding until they’d gotten their cake, per instructions.
Cake in hand, he left the busy staff to their work and headed to the front door, where Andrew should be waiting for him. Andrew and their coats… and a large platter covered with cookies, apparently.
“Uhm….”
“Let’s go,” Andrew said as he shoved Neil’s coat into his arms.
Neil wasn’t going to ask, not when his husband radiated barely contained annoyance and there weren’t any dead bodies (that he knew of, which was all that mattered).
The cake box in the back seat of the Maserati and the cookie platter firmly held on Andrew’s lap, Neil smoothly shifted the car into gear to drive them home. “For any future weddings, we’re out of town,” Andrew declared before he bit into a brownie.
“Agreed.”
It was a peaceful drive home, the only sound the purr of the car’s engine and Andrew munching on cookies. Once they were inside their townhouse, Neil put the cake and the remaining cookies (he smiled when he noticed that Andrew had gotten more of the pumpkin ones for him) away, then fed the cats, who acted as if they were such starved creatures.
When he straightened up, Andrew was next to him. “Hey,” Neil breathed out, his smile strengthening as he was tugged closer by broad hands on his hips. “Renee was ready to fly out here and help me stage a jailbreak in case you snapped tonight.”
“It was close,” Andrew admitted. “Someone tried to get me out on the dance floor, but Terri cut her off before she lost her arm.”
And probably more than that, knowing Andrew, Neil thought with a slight wince; he would have to thank his fellow striker next week. “Well, we’re home now, you still have some sweets left despite everything, and I’ve this suit which I can’t quite remember how to take off.” Neil batted his eyelashes a couple of times. “Won’t you help me?”
“Pathetic as always, Josten,” Andrew sneered, but the heat in his lovely hazel eyes had nothing to do with anger or disgust.
“Josten-Minyard,” Neil reminded him before he was tugged down for a kiss, a pleased hum escaping as warm, strong hands slipped beneath his jacket.
The evening might have been horrible, but he couldn’t complain about the sugar rush from all those cookies Andrew had eaten, oh no.
*******
Ok, I really do need to get back to some in progress fics. But that was mildly amusing (and cathartic).
